Chapter 736 The Ninth Brigade
The East African Defense Force built many bunkers on the banks of the Turkana River. Some bunkers were built directly near the river beach and equipped with machine gun ports to block the river surface, especially at the bends of the river.
In April, South Africa has not yet entered the rainy season, so the Tugela River is not abundant, but it is not dry either. This is because the western part is influenced by the Drakensberg Mountains, with relatively abundant topographic rainfall, and the dry season is not as obvious as in other areas of East Africa, which makes the water volume of the Tugela River very considerable.
This is also an important reason why Lesotho became the "water tower" of South Africa in the past. The water diversion project of the Republic of South Africa in the past was to buy water from Lesotho and then supplement the water demand of the northern industrial areas.
Overall, the British army chose a good time to cross the river, which was the dry season of the Tugela River, but it was also somewhat difficult. However, for East Africa, defending the Tugela River is not easy.
The Tugela River is very tortuous due to the terrain, and there are many large river bends, which lengthens the river channel and the defense line must also be designed to be very long.
The total number of people in the 9th Brigade in East Africa is more than 5,700. This number was previously more than some divisions in East Africa. This is the result of the expansion of the East African army.
However, the defense zone of the 9th Brigade was more than 200 kilometers. With less than 6,000 soldiers, it had to defend such a long border. Therefore, the 9th East African Brigade would not be able to hold out for long against the British army in the Natal colony.
As long as the British continue to attack, they will always find a suitable place to cross the river. The main trouble for the British army now is the limited number of crossing boats.
After all, the development of the entire East African region is very weak. So far, as the only infrastructure powerhouse in Africa, East Africa is still building various infrastructure projects across the country. However, there is a clear gap between roads, canals, bridges, etc. and those of Eurasian countries. Overall, it is only stronger than South America.
However, South America is not strong in large-scale projects, and regional small-scale infrastructure should be better than East Africa, especially in Argentina and Brazil, where the conditions are good in areas with concentrated populations.
Especially in Argentina, the growth rate of railways is no slower than that in East Africa. With the support of British capital, Argentina is developing rapidly.
The infrastructure level in East Africa ranks first in Africa, so one can imagine the level of other colonies or African countries.
Take the Tugela River Basin as an example. The people living here before were the Zulus. The Zulus were "de facto" barbarians, and their development of the Tugela River Basin was basically zero.
The Tugela River Basin did not actually change much after East Africa and the United Kingdom took over, mainly because East Africa built a large number of military facilities in the area.
The United Kingdom does not have such demands. As the world's most powerful country, the United Kingdom is often on the offensive and does not need to put too much effort into defense.
After all, no country has the courage to take the initiative to conflict with Britain. As for Germany, its national strength has not yet reached the level to compete with Britain, and the United States has been excluded from the center of the world by Europe and can only show off its power in the Americas.
The Tugela River is the border between Britain and East Africa. There is no commercial exchange between the two sides. Neither side has developed the Tugela River basin, so the shipping industry naturally cannot develop. The shortage of ships is understandable.
Of course, the Tugela River itself has no potential for developing the shipping industry. The Tugela Falls alone are enough to cut off local shipping conditions.
The current situation facing East Africa is that the coalition forces are attacking simultaneously in three major directions, with countless smaller directions, while also having to guard against the Egyptian British troops in the north.
Therefore, the East African troops are distributed relatively evenly in each battlefield, so the manpower seems a bit stretched. The only one with superior manpower is the Eastern Military Region. The Eastern Military Region is actually divided into two components, namely the Guards Division and the Eastern Military Region. Although the Guards Division belongs to the Eastern Military Region, it is actually an independent unit.
In short, the 9th Brigade was under tremendous pressure that it should not have been under, and being able to block the British army's three river crossings was beyond its capabilities.
In this regard, the 9th Brigade is grateful to the British commander for his command, whose eagerness to achieve results led to the current situation.
This has a lot to do with the British commanders underestimating the enemy. After all, the main force of the British army this time came from the British Royal Indian Army. They fought more favorable battles, which meant that their configuration in Africa was similar to that in South Asia. However, the current military strength of East Africa has surpassed that of small and medium-sized countries in Europe, and can even rank among the top in Europe.
9th Brigade Front Command.
"Brigade Commander, we have observed that the enemy is about to launch a new round of offensive, and their river crossing troops have regrouped again!"
Brigadier General Aristotle did not give any instructions immediately, but asked: "What time is it now?"
"It's already 5:23 pm, and we still have more than an hour to wait until dark."
Aristotle analyzed: "The British commanders are only acting recklessly now. They have organized and launched three large-scale landing operations during the day, and they were all repelled by our superior firepower. However, our ammunition consumption is extremely high, especially machine guns, which are very effective in attacking small river crossing boats. They can even directly destroy the hull and make the entire British river crossing assault force scrapped."
"What a pity! Although the Maxim machine gun is useful, our production capacity in East Africa is very limited. In less than a day, we have consumed one-fifth of our inventory."
"The Maxim machine gun was very useful against the enemy's small landing craft. The British troops on the river became sitting ducks. It only took one round of strafing to exhaust the enemy's patience and deal a serious blow to their morale."
The front-line troops of the 9th Brigade gave very good feedback on the machine guns, but the ammunition consumption of the machine guns was also alarming.
This made Brigadier General Aristotle think about the usage of machine guns. Machine guns are extremely powerful. What effect would it have if they were concentrated together to deal with the enemy's large-scale attack?
The most important thing is that the efficiency of machine gun use did not meet Aristotle's expectations. This kind of large-scale lethality demand should be applied to large-scale land frontal battlefields.
It was a bit wasteful to use it to intercept the British army crossing the river. Many soldiers enjoyed the fight, but they tended to ignore the use of ammunition.
So Aristotle said: "If we use machine guns as the output point of firepower, we can effectively intercept the British troops crossing the river, but if we organize the machine guns and arrange them into a firing belt, what will be the result of the lethality to the enemy?"
After all, the British Army's combat mode is mainly based on line-up and shoot-to-kill tactics. If East Africa can organize its machine guns at the same time and fire at the enemy, the scene would probably be very efficient.
Now the 9th Brigade uses machine guns as defensive weapons. The effect of machine guns against enemy landing operations cannot be maximized. After all, the British troops in the landing operations are dispersed.
Aristotle's idea triggered the thinking of everyone in the brigade. This approach seemed very feasible, but before seeing the actual combat results, no one could be completely sure of its feasibility.
Seeing that no one had made any meaningful suggestions, Aristotle had to put this idea aside for the time being. The most important thing now was to repel the enemy's fourth river crossing attempt and buy more time for the entire New Hamburg port city.
So Aristotle gave the order: "Before dark, repel the enemy's fourth attack. When dark comes, it will be much more difficult for the British to cross the river. Now the volunteers from New Hamburg Port who are supporting the front line are evacuating. We have to hold off the British for at least two days, and then evacuate to New Hamburg Port. During this time, we must save bullets, especially machine gun ammunition, and store at least half of it in advance."
(End of this chapter)
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